Ambling through Amman

I had a full day to put in before officially meetings the tour group in the evening. Fortunately, I met a couple of tourmates in the lobby at breakfast heading to the same sites I had planned on. So a small group of us headed out together to catch the historic highlights of the city. 

First stop in Amman was... well, Rome. The Roman Amphitheater that is. Built in the period of Jordan’s history under Roman occupation (63AD to 324AD), the amphitheater seats more than 6,000 people. 

Also at the amphitheater and included in the ticket are the Jordan Folklore museum and Popular Traditions museum, which were quite interesting but don’t allow photos. 

So I took one anyways! Here’s a photo of Byzantine mosaic work. It’s a partridge visiting another partridge in a cage. The caged bird represents the soul trapped in the human body. 

After the amphitheater, we stopped at a quiet cafe for a (what turned out to be instant) coffee. Then it was walking up the winding road to the Amman Citadel (Jabar al Qal’a). It is perched on top of a high hill - one of seven that made up ancient Amman. 

We bartered with a guide at the main entrance and settles on a reasonable price for a guided history. And oh man what a complex and long history! The Citadel has been home to several major civilizations since the Neolithic times.

Here is a quick list of occupants:

- 1950 BC Middle Bronze Age 

- 1550 BC late Bronze Age 

- 1200 BC Iron Age

- 527 BC Persian period

- 332 BC Hellenistic (Greek) period

- 63 AD Roman period

- 324 AD Byzantine period

- 635 AD early Islamic period

- 749 AD Abbasid, Fatimid, Ayyubid

- 1260 AD decline in use 

- 1878 AD restored interest in the site

- 1920 AD major excavation work begins

That’s a lot of history to pack in one site and one walk around. The first site ruins we saw were the Roman stairs up to the temple of Hercules. They would have been about 20 metres (60 feet) wide in my estimate. Not too much left now though. 

The entrances to the temple were oriented east and west - life and death represented by sunrise and sunset. And something about separate doors for regular people versus VIPs but instead... lizard!

The columns for the temple of Hercules must have been at least 10 metres (30ft) high, giving a rough scope of how massive it must have been. 

See tiny Ashley for scale. 

Speaking of scale, the original fist and elbow from the marble carved Hercules statue remain in tact. That would be a mighty punch. 

I think Medusa must have looked in the mirror. Who’s stone now, sucker?

Onwards we arrived in the Byzantine and Islamic areas. Here we saw columns from a church that would have been decorated in the famous mosaic style of Byzantium. 

And we saw... a bird!

We learned how all the buildings were designed with flat roofs leading to eaves troughs with downspouts made of terra cotta. Any rain water or snow would be collected into cisterns in each house or building. A large cistern (Birka) was used for collecting water for agriculture and livestock. 

Terra cotta downspout on the left side of the building. 

Livestock like this different lizard!

Attached to the Citadel are Roman baths - hot, cold and steam rooms separated for men and women.

Further down the path were houses and a Hellenistic, later repatriated by Romans, temple. No writing or statues were recovered to indicate whom the temple honoured however, so that remains a mystery. 

We headed into the Umayyad palace to see the carvings and reconstructed dome ceiling. 

Across from the palace is a market square and site of an Islamic mosque. 

Also on the hill top is the Jordan Archeological Museum - a very interesting and small museum included in your ticket. Within the museum are the earliest pottery and statues known to man. All I can say is our ancestors made creepy art. 

Just outside the museum was a Bronze Age cave that we crouched and shuffled into for a quick exploration. 

Ambling our of the site and back down the hill, we stopped for a delicious lunch of pita, falafel, and four dips (hummus, baba ghanoush, cucumber something and bran something) at Hamesh restaurant and decided on the next destination. We heard good things about the Royal Automobile Museum, so we hopped in a cab to look at some cars. 

The museum was really nice - new, well organized and stuffed to be brim with rare and fancy vehicles. I’m not really one for cars, so I’m sure I missed what was most important or rare among the hundred or so vehicles. Here are a few I randomly liked. 

Amphibious car - supposed to go from land to water

One of the first Volkswagen painted original German army green. 

Almost all the vehicles in the collection were donated by the royal families. 

Back to the hotel to meet the rest of our group! Then we had a bite to eat... at Hamesh again before heading to the amphitheater to soak in the sight of locals enjoying a holiday evening in the park.